


I Still Believe in Heroes

by Sophia_the_Scribe



Series: That Fleeting Thought [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-21 05:08:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16570247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sophia_the_Scribe/pseuds/Sophia_the_Scribe
Summary: A collection of drabbles, mainly surrounding the Avengers and their families and friends.





	1. The Avengers

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer for the collection: Marvel owns the rights to all recognizable characters and circumstances.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Triple Drabble  
> I still believe in heroes.

The captain out of time who jumps on a grenade, crashes a plane, lays down on a wire to let his comrades cross. The broken genius who rebuilds himself with blood and fire and iron, who takes the one-way trip and yet returns. The thunder god who proves his worth by knowing the worth of others, who sacrifices his dearest desires to save his worst enemies.

The brilliant man who is also a monster, who learns how to live with being both. The scarred woman who is also a killer, who regrets the red in her ledger. The father who holds both family and team close to his heart, balances the protection of one with the preservation of the other.

The brother and sister who choose for themselves to reject vengeance and be heroes. The artificial intelligence, created of science and faith and power, seeking his place in the world that he knows so well yet not at all. Two soldiers, men who conquer gravity and take to the skies, comrades loyal to opponents in a tragic divide.

The best friend, brainwashed through fear and pain, restored through the love and care of his friends and allies. The trickster, loyal to one side then to another, who will not stand by as his brother is killed.

The noble king who learns from his and his father’s mistakes, who stands with his country to defend an unknowing world. The boy endowed with great power who accepts its implicit responsibility. The arrogant man who learns his own insignificance, who sees with clarity and holds the burdens of an entire world, an entire universe.

_To these I look, and in all I see courage, humility, selflessness. I see lessons learned and wrongs righted._

_And my response is certain: I still believe in heroes._


	2. Doctor Strange

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Double Drabble  
> The bill comes due.

“You think there will be no consequences, no price to pay?”

The remembered words echo, and he closes his eyes. His teeth clench. His fingernails draw blood on his palms.

He sees the spear-heads through his heart, the spray of burst arteries. He smells the acrid stench of his flesh burning, tastes the iron tang of his blood. He feels every sickening crack of his shattering bones. Dormammu is clever—sometimes he is left alone until he dies of thirst. Sometimes he is tortured beyond mere pain, until he can sense nothing but the echoing snarls of Dormammu’s rage. Sometimes he fights on and on and on, every block and strike fainter and feebler until he collapses from exhaustion. Sometimes he uses the extra time as a gift, honing skills and perfecting techniques in this unique chance to practice fighting to the death. But sometimes he doesn’t even raise a shield, merely stating his oft-repeated line before waiting, once again, for the end and the beginning.

“The bill always comes due,” Mordo had said.

But within his own mind, desperate in the anguish of a hundred lives, a thousand deaths, Stephen cannot help but cry,

_Have I not already paid?_


	3. Captain Rogers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drabble-and-a-half.   
> A lonely memorial.

In the pre-dawn grey of a certain November morning, Steve Rogers remembers.

It is not the day recorded in museum exhibits, history textbooks, and website infographics, when the army finalized the paperwork and announced the official roster for Captain America’s elite team. That day is insignificant: the Howling Commandos were not formed by Colonel Phillips or Senator Brandt or President Roosevelt, signatures of great men in indelible ink on expensive paper. No, their brotherhood was written in scars, in blood.

They were forged through the fear and hope of a daring rescue, bound through stench and sweat on a victorious march, sealed in a war-torn bar in Europe, when men who barely knew his name chose to follow him into the jaws of death.

He raises his glass. The brandy sparkles like amber in the first ray of sunlight.

“To the Howling Commandos,” says the Captain, and drains his glass.


End file.
